 The boroughs were placed under the control of a corporation headed by a mayor, and in most cases leading to no concept of popular control, the whole system of appointment to the corporation being one of co-option by existing members.Absence of popular protest to this may in part be due to old popular control being more nominal than real, and the new charters gave as a rule two councils of considerable size.These councils bore a heavy burden of taxation in meeting royal loans and benevolences, paying per capita, like the magnates of the 12th century, and for a time there is on the whole little evidence of friction between the governors and the governed.